You took perks that fall well outside what is expected in a snake inspired build, yet you still managed to present a build with the perfect snake vibe as understood in Nordic lore. Way to think outside the box.

Illusion spells can be high maintenance sometimes. Mostly due to their spell cost and how useless they are if the enemy is too high a level. They don't do much good alone if it's down to just you and that high level boss you have to kill to advance.

Dual casted Pacify will take care of pretty much any enemy in the game. More so, with all relevant perks, the same effect can be achieved with Apprentice-level Calm spell. And spell cost is not an issue, even if you don't use enchantments, cost-reducing perks and skill level will take care of that. 

That's true!  I do have plans for all the Shouts, so Soul Tear will make an appearance in a future totem - but you make a good case for it here as well.

That's true.  I feel the same way about sneak archery - very difficult to "discipline" myself if I don't want to just sneak/shoot the entire game.

Illusion is different for me, though, since I very rarely use it.  I've always disliked the level-based mechanic, and the all-or-nothing aspect:  either your Illusion spell completely fails and is useless, or it completely succeeds and the fight is over.  So when I maxed it out with this character, it was something of a novelty.  It didn't occur to me to entirely avoid fights - I used it to make fights more viable, since my defenses weren't great.

Also, my offenses weren't spectacular either - for the majority of the playthrough, I just had 1/5 in Barbarian.  As I got going, I realized I may as well use all the leftover perks.  So I only filled out 2-handed once I hit the 30s.  Illusion, then, was my primary way of setting up the battlefield so I could perform effectively, usually 1-on-1. 

Thanks, Curse, much appreciated!  I did have trouble at first thinking of Snake-appropriate skills, but this seemed to work for me. 

Interesting choices in this build! After your comment about mucking around menu purgatory with Alchemy, I'd have thought it would be in this build. Especially with the 'Snakeblood' perk being in the tree and the focus on crafting from the Shor connection. Illusion was a must with a perk called 'Hypnotic Gaze', of course. I'm still playing the Wolf, so I may not test this one but good work on the layout and lore. Can't wait to see what's you've got for Fox, since you used Illusion here!

Interesting take on the snake

Alchemy will make its big appearance in the next build in the series. :)  But yes, my initial thought was to use Alchemy as a primary skill for the Snake.  Can't remember what it was that shifted, but my basic process in determining primary skills was to make sure each totem had 1 primary skill that could be used to take care of enemies.  Out of the 18 skills in Skyrim, only 9 really allow for that:  Destruction, Conjuration, Illusion, One Handed, Two Handed, Archery, Sneak, Alchemy, Enchanting.  Those last 3 are maybe debatable, but hopefully the Wolf showed that Sneak (and Restoration) could be used fairly handily to get you through the game.  Alchemy and Enchanting, while not direct offensive skills themselves, grant a good deal of versatility and power, and you can really center a build around them.  

Anyway, since there are really only 9 "deal with bad guys" skills, I needed just one for each totem - which meant that, once I decided that Illusion belonged to the Snake, Alchemy had to go somewhere else.  

Of course, this is all limited to the primary skills.  Other totems will use these skills as minors.  

Pleasantly surprised here! Nothing like what I would have thought the Snake build might look like, but after reading this there's no way to disagree.

It's great that you continue keeping your builds simple in the sense of not using too many skills, and perking only what is really necessary.